Effective Preparation

[kenhung123]

What do high scorers do to prepare themselves for SACs and exams?
Do they tend to spam questions or study the fine details of the theory and concepts of the topics?

[Yitzi_K]

I don't know if I qualify as a high achiever, but I believe the best way to study maths is simply to do maths, ie practice, practice, practice.

[ninwa]

How do you define high scorer? I would say spam questions. You learn a fair bit of the "finer details" that way plus you get practice at applying them.

[olly_s15]

spam exam-style questions and scrutinize your errors so you do not make them again

[vea]

QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS QUESTIONS

Although I'm not much of a high scorer, you get the point.

[naved_s9994]

^ not only that..

I believe, exposure to various style of questions.. You cant find them in the commercial textbooks...
Spam some bookstores, and you shall find

[darkphoenix]

For maths, there is not normally much theory, thus practice is the key.

[Cthulhu]

The theory doesn't matter in methods. If you were doing specialist you might need to know some theory to do proofs but in Methods you only need the equations you learn.

[the.watchman]

I don't know exactly how successful it is, but I usually:

(a) Go to my pile of prac exams and find questions on the test/SAC topic to do
(b) Do the textbook (teacher) summary tests

Seems to have worked so far...

[AzureBlue]

Same as what everyone above me has said - practice. And derive theorems when applicable (not much in methods though)

[Martoman]

Understand what you are doing. Have a *sense* of what is right and wrong, which of course, is gained by experience.

The best thing one can do is just search around for good resources. Whenever you find a question that you can't do, note it down. These are the kind of questions that you should tackle. Once you get it, you will learn far more than from a simple chain-rule/quotient/composite function question.

For the most part, just be organised (wow... this is being really hypocrictical of myself.... but I realised this afterwards with hindsight.) You finish the course with a month or two in your pocket. What you should have done during the year is do some revision, so that in this month 2 weeks isn't devoted to relearning BUT TO ACTUALLY DOING EXAMS!!

There is however, a HUGE CBF factor to overcome. Once over this hurdle, it shouldn't be to hard to do.

Also, with formulas, look for patterns. This helps. Loads.